Jerry In Prison – Part 1: Warden Polinski

Jerry sat in the warden’s office, in shock and speechless. He was in deep shit and he knew it. Being in prison was bad enough, but getting in trouble within those walls? He trembled as he remained in the chair. He got lost in his thoughts. Why hadn’t he just taken heed to everything his family had said? If it hadn’t been for him getting involved with those drug-crazed, crime-happy hoodlums he had once called his friends, he wouldn’t even be anywhere near the mess he was in now. He still remembered it as if it were yesterday…

About seven months ago, Jerry and four of his buddies, drugged out and drunk, had driven up to a convenience store/gas station. Through his buzz, Jerry knew that he was about to do wrong, but he could not control himself for being so fucked up. The five men put on ski masks and bandannas, grabbed guns, and burst into the store, shooting bullets into the air to make everyone inside get down. One of the men had gone right up to the cashier and demanded money. Little did the robbers know that a few of the customers were skilled martial artists. Some of the customers fought the men off while the cashier called the police. As luck would have it, Jerry’s friends managed to escape, but as Jerry ran after them, a larger man blindsided him, tackling him painfully to the ground. He then pinned Jerry to the floor, and all Jerry could do was watch helplessly as his friends raced to the car and sped away, while the sirens in the distance confirmed that the cops were on their way…

Jerry stood trial for armed robbery and drug possession a few weeks later. He never knew if his boys had been caught, and as far as he could tell, they never were, nor had they turned themselves in; it seemed they had let Jerry take the fall all by himself. The judge who presided over the trial somehow knew Jerry’s situation, and he did not like seeing young men’s lives being destroyed by their making poor choices. He sympathized with Jerry, who was only 19 years old, and offered leniency; in exchange for Jerry turning his friends in, he would be let off with one year probation and 100 hours of community service. But Jerry knew what his friends thought of snitches. The last time someone had snitched on them, he had seen for himself what they did to people like that. The brutal, vicious beating that guy had received still haunted Jerry’s nightmares sometimes, and so great was his fear of having that done to him, he could not bring himself to rat them out. And so the judge, with utmost regret, sentenced Jerry to two years in prison.

And so now here he was, in this hellhole of a jail, serving his time. He had tried so hard to be on his best behavior, but today’s incident had marked the end of that. Just fifteen minutes ago, one of the smaller prison guards had advanced on him, clearly trying to get into his pants. Jerry resisted to no avail, but when the guard had thrust his hand forward to grab his genitals, Jerry panicked and reacted by repeating a technique he’d seen in a movie once; a swift kick to the balls, and when the guard was bent over, he kneed him in the face, and he went down with a bloody, broken nose and a loose tooth. Most unfortunately, the captain of the guards, who happened to be much bigger, had witnessed the incident and tackled Jerry to the floor.

“Well, well, well,” the guard-captain had said with a horrible grin on his face. “Assaulting the guards now, are we? I wonder what Warden Polinski will think of this?” And laughing like a lunatic, he dragged Jerry to the warden’s office.

The warden was not there when they entered, so the guard-captain told Jerry to sit and wait. Overcome with fear, he obeyed. The guard-captain stood next to the door, eliminating any hope or chance of escape. He pulled out a cell phone and sent a text message to someone, not speaking a word, and then he put it away. Jerry sat there awaiting his doom, sweat streaming from his pores even though the room was relatively cool. He knew what Warden Polinski was capable of. As far as he knew for fact, if a prisoner was sent to the warden, he usually came out bruised and bloodied; the half-Russian Polinski was a trained fighter and really knew how to fuck somebody up. He had even heard rumors that if a prisoner was particularly offensive, the warden would “have his way with him.” It was no man’s desire to piss the warden off, and from what he’d heard, attacking prison guards made him see blood red. However, there was one thing Jerry feared more than seeing the warden, and he hoped he had not done enough wrong to be condemned to that…

The door opened, and Warden Polinski entered. The 27-year-old Polinski stood about 5 feet 7 inches. He had short, dark hair and a rather brutish face, which right now had a cold, cruel expression. He glared at Jerry for a few seconds, then reached his hand into the pocket of his pants and pulled out a folded slip of paper. He casually handed it to the guard-captain, who looked at it for a few seconds, then nodded to Polinski before taking his exit, closing the door behind him. Polinski walked forward and stood directly in front of Jerry, looking down upon him with the same stony expression. Though he was dressed in a dark suit, it was amazing how intimidating he still looked. Jerry trembled harder.

“So,” Polinski said in his rough voice, which carried only a small hint of a Russian accent. “Apparently you think you’re above the guards in this prison.”

Jerry stammered “N-no, I d-d-don’t, he was t-t-trying to—”

“SILENCE!” he barked, backhanding Jerry across the jaw, making him groan. “You do not speak unless you are told.”

“But I—”

“I SAID,” Polinski snarled with a clean, square punch to Jerry’s cheekbone, “Shut the fuck up!”

The force of the blow knocked Jerry to the ground, and he started whining.

“Get up, bitch boy,” said Polinski, towering over Jerry.